Germany’s largest telecoms operator, Deutsche Telekom, claims its 5G network is 80 percent ready and expects 99 percent coverage by 2025.
Speaking to a conference of German business leaders, Deutsche Telekom CEO Timotheus Höttges said around 22,000 of the operator's 27,000 mobile sites were now connected to high-speed fibre-optic.
Dirk Wössner, Board Member of Telekom Deutschland, said:
"Everyone wants to be in the high-speed network – across all levels of society. That's what drives us. Deutsche Telekom is ready for 5G.
We're working hard on the network roll-out in both the fixed and mobile networks and we will live up to our responsibility for Germany's digital future. We're building the network for everyone."
The existing sites are using single RAN (Radio Access Network) systems that allow different radio standards to run on the same hardware.
Deutsche Telekom expects its 5G network will start going live in 2020, expanding to cover 99 percent of the population by 2025.
Stephan Broszio, Spokesperson for Deutsche Telekom, said:
"We want the best-performing digital infrastructure for Germany. We want to achieve this objective together with the companies that are willing to invest, and with the responsible politicians.
We want to speed up digitalisation in Germany: In cooperation with the public sector by digitalising administration.”
Broszio was speaking after the release of Deutsche Telekom’s 8-point pledge for the future of Germany's connectivity landscape.
The operator plans to invest 20 billion euros in Germany by 2021. A recent agreement was reached with competitor Telefonica who will use Deutsche Telekom's fiber-optic network to connect its own mobile base stations.
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